Funerals are so hard. Dom lost his dad and then his mom in September 2022 and February 2023. It still doesn't feel quite real. I've missed too many funerals over the years, though and am resolving to try harder to get to them. The processing of grief that way is so important.
19! Sigh. B. will be 19 next month and that still doesn't even make sense to me. Four teens in my house and one pre-teen and I keep wondering where the little people went to.
We have daffodils and grape hyacinths in our garden beds. All the maples are still covered in red flowers. Golden sprays of forsythia everywhere. The first early star magnolias are dazzlingly white and make me want to cry they're so beautiful. And some pink covered trees which I think might be plum, but I can't get close enough to tell for sure. The rabbits have decapitated all my tulips, so all those poor bulbs are producing is leaves. How do I make them stop?
I'm currently reading Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) and it's amazing. It's so funny, such a romp. Like Shakespeare plus Dickens but in the Italian countryside. Also a new Doireann Ní Ghríofa poetry collection just arrived in the mail recently. And my poetry has tended to Jane Hirshfield, Charles Causley, Robert Hass' translations of Bashõ, Buson, and Issa, Edna St Vincent Millay's sonnets, and Maryann Corbett.
Of course now you're making me want to pick up Room with a View again. I don't think I've read it since college. Someone mentioned recently that there's a reference in it to Manzoni's Betrothed.
I'm sorry to hear about Dom's parents. It's a hard season, for sure.
And sorry to hear about your decapitated tulips!!!! Mine didn't come up at all, which is so odd. They're in full glory all over the neighborhood. Do gophers eat tulip bulbs?
I've been enjoying your April poems, Melanie, and your reading list makes me swoon.
Oh it could be gophers. Or other rodents. When we lived in Salem our landlord had a war with the squirrels who would dig up his tulip bulbs and eat them.
Thank you so much for reading and liking my poems. April is just such a poem-y month. Also Lucy and I are reading Anne of Avonlea and Anne always makes me feel poem-y too.
She's 19?!? Of course she is as my baby is 18 but it's almost like you forget that other people's children keep growing too. I'm so sorry to hear of Scott's dad passing. We both lost our parents a while ago and now I am watching the people around me go through it. It's hard losing a parent. You know it will happen eventually but I remember feeling so alone when my mom died --despite all my many people.
Lots blooming here. it's an endless succession for the forseeable future as the people who planted here did such a great job of giving us various blooming things that last well into summer. I want to start a garden but I don't know if I can muster the energy.I know from past experiences that you can spend a good bit of time fighting off all the creatures that like to eat what you plant and grow. Not sure I have the bandwidth for that this year. Fortunately I live in an area where fresh produce is abundant and affordable so I realize it's a luxury to be able to skip it.
I go in spurts with my reading. I'll read voraciously for months and then hardly at all. I can't seem to maintain focus at the moment given the daily onslaught of . . . chaos.
You're so right!! Mine get older but yours are still tiny!!
I'm with you on the challenges to focus, too. I find I'm either totally avoiding reading ANYTHING news-related because it's all so distressing, or I'm hyperfocusing and then struggling to focus on work. But Frizzlit has been good for me in that regard. Knowing I can show up each week to talk about some juicy piece of literature with a brainy crowd.
So lovely to have you back!
Funerals are so hard. Dom lost his dad and then his mom in September 2022 and February 2023. It still doesn't feel quite real. I've missed too many funerals over the years, though and am resolving to try harder to get to them. The processing of grief that way is so important.
19! Sigh. B. will be 19 next month and that still doesn't even make sense to me. Four teens in my house and one pre-teen and I keep wondering where the little people went to.
We have daffodils and grape hyacinths in our garden beds. All the maples are still covered in red flowers. Golden sprays of forsythia everywhere. The first early star magnolias are dazzlingly white and make me want to cry they're so beautiful. And some pink covered trees which I think might be plum, but I can't get close enough to tell for sure. The rabbits have decapitated all my tulips, so all those poor bulbs are producing is leaves. How do I make them stop?
I'm currently reading Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) and it's amazing. It's so funny, such a romp. Like Shakespeare plus Dickens but in the Italian countryside. Also a new Doireann Ní Ghríofa poetry collection just arrived in the mail recently. And my poetry has tended to Jane Hirshfield, Charles Causley, Robert Hass' translations of Bashõ, Buson, and Issa, Edna St Vincent Millay's sonnets, and Maryann Corbett.
Of course now you're making me want to pick up Room with a View again. I don't think I've read it since college. Someone mentioned recently that there's a reference in it to Manzoni's Betrothed.
B is turning 19 too? They all grew up so fast!
Right?! Too fast!
SO FAST!
I'm sorry to hear about Dom's parents. It's a hard season, for sure.
And sorry to hear about your decapitated tulips!!!! Mine didn't come up at all, which is so odd. They're in full glory all over the neighborhood. Do gophers eat tulip bulbs?
I've been enjoying your April poems, Melanie, and your reading list makes me swoon.
Oh it could be gophers. Or other rodents. When we lived in Salem our landlord had a war with the squirrels who would dig up his tulip bulbs and eat them.
Thank you so much for reading and liking my poems. April is just such a poem-y month. Also Lucy and I are reading Anne of Avonlea and Anne always makes me feel poem-y too.
Oh AVONLEA!!! Brings me such joy just to think of it!
She's 19?!? Of course she is as my baby is 18 but it's almost like you forget that other people's children keep growing too. I'm so sorry to hear of Scott's dad passing. We both lost our parents a while ago and now I am watching the people around me go through it. It's hard losing a parent. You know it will happen eventually but I remember feeling so alone when my mom died --despite all my many people.
Lots blooming here. it's an endless succession for the forseeable future as the people who planted here did such a great job of giving us various blooming things that last well into summer. I want to start a garden but I don't know if I can muster the energy.I know from past experiences that you can spend a good bit of time fighting off all the creatures that like to eat what you plant and grow. Not sure I have the bandwidth for that this year. Fortunately I live in an area where fresh produce is abundant and affordable so I realize it's a luxury to be able to skip it.
I go in spurts with my reading. I'll read voraciously for months and then hardly at all. I can't seem to maintain focus at the moment given the daily onslaught of . . . chaos.
You're so right!! Mine get older but yours are still tiny!!
I'm with you on the challenges to focus, too. I find I'm either totally avoiding reading ANYTHING news-related because it's all so distressing, or I'm hyperfocusing and then struggling to focus on work. But Frizzlit has been good for me in that regard. Knowing I can show up each week to talk about some juicy piece of literature with a brainy crowd.